ACA Forum

There was no sign of "The Hoff" or "KITT" at Duthie Park today but Knight Riders announced their arrival by narrowly winning their Grade 4 encounter with Portcullis. Set 178 to win they reached their target for the loss of eight wickets.

On a cold and miserable day in Duthie Park Captain Kris maintained his good form with the coin and elected to bat. The innings got off to a bright start with in form opener Alex Bryce and partner Ranjan Sahoo adding 27. Ranjan hit some nice boundaries before being cleaned up and was quickly followed by Collinson Snr and the big wicket of Andy Maidment. When he was bowled, playing across the line, for a duck things were looking bleak. Once again though the Bryce - Nair axis stepped in to soak up the pressure and throw it right back. A fourth wicket partnership of 121, taking the score from 32-3 to 153-4, put us in command. Both players registered their half centuries and both were run out shortly after. Their dismissal triggered rapid fire hitting leading up to our declaration on 177-9. Sorry Howard. I'm sure you'll get a long bat soon.

Portcullis's advance on Grade 3 continued to gather pace on Saturday with a resounding victory over Mannofield's second team at Duthie Park. Excellent individual perfromances from Kris Nair, Alex Bryce and new recruit Graham Mowat ensured an 8 wicket victory that keep us firmly in contention for promotion.

You can only play what is put in front of you, and Portcullis followed up last week's record 299 at Huntly by bowling out an under strength 3rd Gordonians for just 15 runs.

We won the game by 10 wickets, with 13 runs off the bat and 3 wides. Nair took 5 wickets with Maidment taking 3. Old man Collinson took two good catches at mid off the other catches by Kannan and junior Collinson. There was a splendid run out by junior Collinson after a terrific throw in by Cox. Bryce and Collinson senior saw us through with Bryce top scoring with 10 runs. The match was played in good spirit by both teams. Former Portcullis player Tarun Dureja was in the Gordonians side, as were Portcullis players Andy Leathem and Graham Mowat who had been loaned to the visitors at their request to enable the game to go ahead.

Portcullis lost the toss and were put in to bat. Huntly took an early wicket, before Ranjan and Maidment started to score freely. Maidment reached 45 when he tried to smash a six but played on to his stumps, Maidment had 6 fours and 2 sixes in his total. Kris came in and he and Ranjan quickly kept the total going with Kris taking the majority of the bowling. Ranjan was next out being bowled for a very steady 39. Nitin then partnered Kris and he made 27 before being caught. There was two other quick wickets before Kris was bowled for a magnificent 93 scoring 12 fours and 5 sixes.

Portcullis continued their fine early season form with a comprehensive 10 wicket win over a weakened Dunecht side. A five wicket haul from Captain Nair and wickets from Dave Cox skittled the home side for 31 before Cullis openers Alex Bryce and Sam Hill knocked off the runs with ease.

Attention all kit geeks!!!! Portcullis caps are now available for purchase from your friendly treasurer. Just approach him at training or match days with £12.50 in your hand and one of these fine non baggy green articles can be yours. Just don't ask him for a loan or he may dissolve into a smouldering pile of rage!!!

The dawn of the Nair era in Portcullis history got off to a perfect start at Kemnay CC's Pleasure Park on Saturday with a 5 wicket victory. A superb all round bowling effort, led by the irrepresible Andy Maidment, was backed up with some top quality catching and fielding which restricted the home side to a below par 117 all out in the 42nd over. Despite a late scare 65 from Maidment (full of trademark biffs), backed up by 25 from new opener Alex Bryce, took Portcullis to a deserved victory.

Portcullis's season is set to improve if the shakey start made yesterday against Stonehaven is anything to go by.

Both teams were fielding several new players, with N.Shetty, A.Leathem and R.Falconner on the Portcullis books matched by R.Balsillie and D.Anderson for Stonehaven. Portcullis were not fazed by the sight of such grades luminaries on the team sheet and set about the Stonehaven batting with gusto, with Andrew Maidment despatching a floundering Anderson with the final ball of his first over. The first few overs went reasonably well for Portcullis, with Maidment proving particularly hard to handle. Kris Nair was somewhat more productive for the batsmen, but when he was replaced by Nitin Shetty the runs dried up as the batsmen struggled to handle the combination of Shetty's cunnning spin and Maidment's vicious pace.

One of the good things about having all of our results stored on the web site database is that it is relatively easy to pull out all sorts of weird and wonderful statistics. Much has been said in the past about both our relative propensity to give our team mates out LBW compared to the opposition, so I thought I’d see if was actually true or not.

Of the 587 wickets we’ve lost since 2005, 57 have been to LBW (9.71%). Of the 536 wickets we’ve taken, 51 have been to LBW (9.51%).

That indicates to me that, whatever the rights and wrongs of any individual calls (and I’m sure we can all bring several absolute shockers to mind without any effort at all), overall we give pretty much as we get. And we need to take more wickets.